A legal practitioner in Rivers State has said any bill to be passed into law to guard against sexual harassment in institutions of higher learning and workplaces should promote balance.
Barrister Collins Georgewill who stated this in an interview on Thursday while giving his impression on the need for any law to guard against sexual harassment in the country said that any law on sexual harassment should promote balance “because sexual harassment at workplaces and institutions of higher learning is a two-way traffic”.
According to him, women are not the only victims in cases of sexual harassment and that the law should not “inadvertently promote blackmail”.
Barrister Georgewill said: “Young girls in their work placements poach their bosses sexually for financial gain just as some female students flirt with lecturers for favourable marks. Female bosses also victimize young men who refuse to act as gigolo to them. Any form of work-related oppression by the opposite sex whether male or female should be proscribed”.
He said any law against sexual harassment should not only be to protect women saying that men should also be protected against sexual harassment.
Barrister Georgewill said: “Making it a female protection law alone will only turn it into an instrument of blackmail against men which is unconstitutional. Imagine a female MD giving her fellow banker car keys with list of things to go and buy in the market which is not part of his job description,” alleging that women use their position to “demean their subordinates under threat of keeping or losing their jobs”.
This is as the Nigerian Senate recently re-introduced a bill against sexual harassment earlier introduced in the 8th Assembly.
The 8th Assembly of the Senate under former Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, had passed the anti-sexual harassment bill entitled: “Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Education Institution Prohibition Bill” which was sponsored by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and fifty seven other Senators.
The bill had among other features prescribed a five-year jail term for lecturers and educators convicted of sexual harassment of their male or female students.
However, the bill was rejected by members of House of Representatives who argued it did not take care of other spheres of society like the workplace and religious institutions among others and the bill was stepped down pending consultation among members of both Chambers of the National Assembly.
The bill was re-introduced in the current 9th Assembly by Senate Deputy President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, following a BBC investigation that revealed two lecturers in University of Lagos and University of Ghana who tried to sexually harass their students.
The BBC report sparked reactions among Nigerians who expressed distaste for the alleged act and the lecturer of University of Lagos allegedly caught in the BBC video making advances to his student was suspended.
The 9th Senate is to debate provisions of the bill.
